I looked at the date before writing this and was kinda surprised to see we are now legitimately in Mid-March. Time flies when you're having fun -- or not, apparently. This past year, spent mostly masked or in quarantine, has had its own dark charm, but I definitely wouldn't say it was "fun." So, apparently time just flies. It has for me since eighth grade. That's my cutoff line. The decade from my earliest memories, age four or so, to my 13th birthday felt longer than the three decades since. I do that thing so often now, where you vaguely think of something as being "a couple years ago," and then you actually drill down on the details and realize "a couple" is seven. Wait... that happened in 2014?!
Here are a few time facts that trip me out.
- When my father was my age, I was in high school.
- There is now a large contingent of adults who don't really remember anything from the 20th century.
- Nirvana's music is older today than the Beatles' music was when I was a teenager.
- If they redid The Wonder Years today, it would be set around 2004.
- The Seattle Mariners and I were "born" in the same year, and they didn't make their first playoff appearance until we were legally adults -- in year 19; it's now been 20 years since their last playoff appearance.
Time flies, but what are you gonna do? Just keep trying to live your best life. And I still got a good chunk of history left to see (for better or worse). I'm shooting for 100, at least, and I'm not even halfway there yet. I have plenty of time to play trivia games on my phone* and write blog entries (almost) nobody reads.
*Speaking of which, I'm in first place in my division in this trivia thing I do called Learned League (the headline is being sensationalistic; it's not that difficult to join). It's sorted by skill level, and I'm in the D "rundle" (A is the highest), so it's not like I'm anywhere near the best players overall. It's very difficult. I have a career average under 50% correct answers. But the other day I got all six daily questions right, which I've only done a few other times. One of the questions was "What dentistry specialty focuses on the treatment of the gingiva and other dental supporting structures, as well as placement of dental implants?" Given my history with PERIODONTICS, this was a no-brainer for me.
Anyway...
My kids' school is still not completely open yet, which is frustrating. I've heard rumors that the teachers are vaccinated and still won't come back. But I don't know for sure if that's true or not. That's another frustrating part -- parents are in the dark about what is actually going on behind closed doors (or, more likely, over closed-to-the-public Zoom meetings). I want kids back in the non-virtual classroom ASAP, but I'm willing to give them a pass through the end of this school year. But that is the absolute end of the line. If schools aren't totally open by fall, I'll... well, I don't know what I'll do, but I certainly won't be inclined to support the teachers union next time they need public support for something. Cases are dropping; the vaccine supply is ramping up; we've learned a lot about how to behave in a way that minimizes transmission; children are not great vectors for the virus and not susceptible to its most deleterious effects. And perhaps most importantly: The damage being done to students who are getting a substandard education (or none at all) and the stress put on families financially, emotionally, and mentally by not having in-person school far, far outweigh the risk of opening schools back up as safely as possible.* It's bordering on lunacy at this point.
*In writing this, I was reminded of this hot mic incident involving the Oakley School Board in California. All board members were forced to resigned, which I think is appropriate, but the thing is: so what if parents just want their babysitters back? Childcare is a massive issue, and for the vast majority of Americans with young children, if they don't have it, they literally cannot earn a living. We've structured society in such a way that "babysitting" (i.e., childcare) is a crucial service schools provide and one for which we all pay taxes. Not having childcare is a massive reason virtual school doesn't work. There's no "just" about it.
We've even gone so far as to start exploring private schools for Lil' S2. I personally am uncomfortable with the very notion of private schools. I think they are overpriced, elitist, and exclusionary. But if I have to chose between that or another year of my son sitting upside-down in his chair while his teacher tries to keep 20 kids engaged over Zoom, I'm picking private school.
It's probably not going to happen, though. Many private schools are outside our budget, and those that aren't are either too far away or look super religious, which neither S nor I are comfortable with. The top candidate is a nearby French immersion school, but they are full, so the best we could do is the wait list. The wait list of a back-up plan probably won't actually come to fruition.
It did cause a nice, stupid argument between S and I, though. I've said before that almost all our fights are meta-fights, in which we aren't actually arguing about a root cause, but rather arguing about arguing. In this case, S was telling me about the French school and how they are full for this upcoming year, but then she said that they will probably have spots open next year (fall 2022) and that the missed year doesn't even affect kids language-wise because they're so young they can catch up in no time. This led to the following conversation.
Me: Next year? How does that help us?
S: I'm just telling you what she said.
Me: Do you want to send him to the school anyway, even if our school is open again?
S: No, this is our back-up plan.
Me: What does next year have to do with our back-up plan for this year?
S: I'm telling you what she said, so that I don't get accused of not telling you everything later.
Me: But when you lead with next year, in detail, it makes it sound like next year is relevant. It's very confusing. Do you see what I'm saying?
S: Fine. Whatever. I don't even want to have this conversation anymore. You can call the woman back and get all the information yourself.
Me: C'mon, you have to understand that you often say things that are clear in your head, but don't come out clear to the listener. That's fine, but then you can't get flustered and shut down when they ask for clarification. That's how conversations work. I'm just trying to talk to you, not criticize you.
S: It's exhausting and stressful to have to constantly explain and clarify everything to you.
Me: Well, I'm not a mind reader, so, yeah, sometimes you need to explain things to me. Sorry.
S: How about for now on, you do all the research and make all the appointments for them? It's too hard for me to do it all and explain it all to you.
Me: But you always just charge ahead and do it. You had an interview scheduled with this school before we even discussed it.
S: Well, maybe I won't do that anymore, and you can figure all this out.
Me: Fine.
S: Fine.
And scene!
Until next time...
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